


Unbound

by azurefishnets



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, mutual hatred (Gol & Khaylmer), mutual weird pining (Gol & Soliam)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: The Master-General conquers the enemies of Sahr for the glory of the Empire, but they cannot bring to the court what the Emperor truly desires.
Relationships: Gol Golathanian & Khaylmer Rope-Caller & Soliam Murr, Gol Golathanian/Soliam Murr
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Unbound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hecleretical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hecleretical/gifts).



The pages of Soliam’s court sang sweetly and played even better; many of them had been training for years to achieve just one performance at an Imperial banquet. Any child thus graced was sure to shine bright as the sun and rise high as the moon, the common-folk whispered amongst themselves. Khaylmer, in his station next to the high gilt throne, sat listening to them in their daily audition with bored contempt; every once in a while, his fingers would flick and the joyful child thus chosen would be escorted away to be made clean and dressed, their makeup applied and their clothes arranged just so, —beautiful androgynous dolls for the Emperor’s aural pleasure at dinner.

Gol strode into the throne room, ignoring the children—the spectacle of their performance had long since ceased to delight them—and stood waiting with arms folded for the current performer to finish her piece, a little song of brilliant sweetness and complex harmonies within the sweet tones of the mandolin she carried. The child’s voice was a little reedy, however, and her fingers trembled under the combined weight of Gol’s scowl and Khaylmer’s boredom. When she finished, no one in the throne room, least of all herself, was surprised to see her sent away.

Khaylmer dismissed the rest, older footmen escorting them out with careful glances back to the confrontation. It was rare nowadays that the Imperial Advisor and the Master-General were left alone; Soliam normally sat on the throne and could temper any building quarrels with a few words and the foolish toss of the short, Court-fashionable hair that Gol so detested. Today, however, the throne stood empty.

“Where is the Emperor?” Gol said when the last of the children had filed out. “I have news of great import.”

Khaylmer folded his hands in his lap, regarding Gol without expression. “Master-General. It has been many days since you showed your face here.”

“Aye, some of us have larger jobs than choosing children to entertain a bunch of foolish courtiers for dinner,” Gol said, a touch sourly.

“Indeed,” Khaylmer said, his voice composed. “And yet, the small tasks must be finished before the larger ones of the day may begin.” The smile he bestowed on Gol had no humor in it. “Do you bring me a large or a small task, Golathanian?”

“Neither,” Gol returned. “My news is for the Emperor himself.”

“Ah, Master-General!” Their liege’s tones of pleased delight swiveled Gol around on the spot, lifting their hand in a salute. “Such an unexpected pleasure to see you before us this morning. Please, tell us both—you know we hide nothing from either our Rope-Caller nor our illustrious ancestor’s mantle.” Emperor Murr padded past Gol, barefoot, hair wild, and the careful knots and ties that were meant to bind his clothes completely undone. He curled himself into his high throne, his silk robes drifting in complex swirls to the floor.

Gol lips curled downward, just a little, as they watched Khaylmer’s tiny smile as he folded himself more deeply into his mantle. “Illustrious, my Liege, the mantle may be, but it becomes a little more worn every time I come back to court,” they said, scowling at the Rope-Caller. “Do not the Empire’s artifacts deserve more than than gracing the neck of some politician?” _Perhaps you would be more appropriately dressed if you wore it,_ was the unsaid sentence he left floating in the air.

Khaylmer drew himself up. “How I treat the clothes gifted to me is not _your_ business, Master-General,’ he said in lofty tones, the tone chill poison and face masklike in its calm as he pulled the mantle closer to his shoulders. “The Emperor’s gift to me is yet invaluable to the Emperor, the moreso because I know how to interpret its wisdom where he may not. That is what role a politician may play in service to Sahr; can a mere soldier claim more?”

Soliam giggled, drawing their attention back to him. “Children!” he said playfully, wagging his finger. “Is this any way to behave before the throne of Sagithol, and Geminian before him? The First Empress, Blessed of Her Name, may have ridden to war on her own behalf, but we may at least keep it from the court!”

Gol took a closer look at him and bit back a sigh. So early in the morning and yet the Emperor had already partaken of something unsavory, likely the feathers of the falcon. His pupils were blown and his face soft, not all present in the room. No wonder he appeared so unkempt; Gol could hear the noble ladies gathered for the day's audiences snickering behind the great carved doors that led into the rest of the palace proper.

They bowed, back stiff. “I beg my Liege’s pardon. Rope-Caller. A general does not always know when to keep the battle from the court. Indeed, it is not for my wisdom but my--”

They cut themself short. In truth, he knew why the Emperor kept him tied to the throne; it was Khaylmer that was more a mystery. Why--or how-- the Rope-Caller did not not simply cozen the Emperor into severing ties with his most uncouth courtier was an enduring mystery.

Khaylmer bowed his head a gracious fraction. “Worry not, Master-General, you’re pardoned for your rudeness.”

 _It’s not for you to pardon me,_ Gol wanted to say, but the warning hadn’t fallen on deaf ears.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Soliam said, smiling like the child he’d called them. “Your bantering is always so amusing to us, but I believe, my General, that you had news?”

Gol’s face flushed. They wondered if Soliam _knew_ how his voice lingered on the words “my General,” making it sound like an endearment more suited to the pillow than the throne. Embarrassing experience told him that he did; if they were wise enough to wear the mantle they would have gone back home long since, they thought with a sigh before answering.

“Aye, my Liege,” they said. “The alchemists of the bog-crones cry surrender and beg for mercy. They send ambassadors with proposals for a treaty that are most favorable to Sahr.”

“Ah.” Soliam’s face drew down in a frown. “Is that all?”

Gol’s back stiffened even more. “Nay, my Liege, but I would advise you to treat with them most carefully; they bring whispers of Titanic stirrings in the bitter lands that lie down the River Sclorian. Their soldiers were sore difficult to subdue and I fear uprisings—"

“Ah!” Soliam sat up straight and clapped his hands together. “Which Titan, Master-General? Bialanthus perhaps? Or Time-Singer Harn? You know the stories of Sagithol and Casius certainly made him sound most fearsome. Not to mention poor Piscer...”

Gol blinked, not expecting the eager enthusiasm. “Lord Gandroth, they say, your Majesty,” he responded at last.

“Ahhhh,” Soliam sighed in pleasure. “We were always most fascinated with him, do you know? He sounds positively,” he shivered in mock-fear, “ _demonic.”_ He leaned forward, his robes falling open and exposing his bare chest, and fixed his eyes on Gol as the intricate tie that should have secured it slithered down his shoulder, unnoticed, and disappeared into the shadowed crevices of the great winged throne. “Please,” he said, his voice a little gravelly and deeper than usual from the morning and whatever he’d taken, “say more.”

Khaylmer coughed, a dry little _ahem_ that drew the Emperor’s eyes to him and off Gol. “Regardless of fairy tales, your Majesty,” he said, “the more important aspect of this is the Celestial Orb, which they say the Molten held in her possession. Did you find it, Master-General?”

Gol gritted their teeth. “Nay, Rope-Caller, no such object lay in her possession, nor any of her apprentices’; nor could we find it in her cloister, search mightily though we did through some of her finest traps and spells at great personal danger.” He noted Khaylmer’s small smirk at that and directed a glare at him as they said with contempt, “If you wish not to speak of children's stories, then cease your search for the Orb, for I do not believe it exists.”

The Emperor’s eyebrows snapped down in wrath. “Why, what is this, Master-General, that you say?” His voice no longer caressed but snapped with the force of a whip. “The Orb _is_ real, and the stories we learned as children are the very foundation of the Emperor's immortality. Khaylmer and the mantle have assured us of it. None of _this,”_ he waved, somewhat wildly, at the trappings of the throne room, “is worth even a fraction of what the Orb may bring our reign.”

Gol looked around at the maligned room. The rich scent of the alchemists’ finest incense drifted through the columns and into the high, painted ceilings, the smoke caressing the carefully painted faces of the heroes of the past. The inlaid parquetry and gold of the floor alone would have supported their family all their lives, much less the feather-spun silk drapings on the walls and the robe the Emperor himself wore. The dark wood of the walls, the brilliant, intricate stained glass of the windows that sent rainbows dancing over the faces of all who dared the presence of the Emperor, even the smaller seat upon which Khaylmer rested his worthless hide, all were created of the finest artisans and minds that Sahr could offer. All in all, they calculated, the content of this room alone could have supported their entire village for a generation, perhaps two.

“The Orb,” they said, as patiently as they could, through rising anger, “is a pretty tale of immortality, my Liege. I go where you will, search as you order, conquer those you wish. That is the immortality of Sahr. That is its history in the making. Can it never be enough?”

Soliam’s face darkened yet further, and he opened his mouth to remonstrate, but Khaylmer, damn his eyes, spoke instead. “We thank you, both for your service and your opinion, Golathanian.” His voice was smug; his choice of words invited a comparison of which was which. “You are dismissed.”

“Yes,” said Soliam, subsiding. “Leave us, Master-General.”

“Aye, my Liege. Rope-Caller.” Gol bowed, their rage pulling them a little shorter and more terse than they might ordinarily have dared. “I await your command.”

They backed from the throne room, eyes lowered properly. The etiquette of the court had cost them many days to learn properly and they would not be disgraced further now. As soon as they were clear of the doors, they straightened, and turned for the halls that led to the outer walls of the palace and freedom from the constraints of court. They wanted home, a bath, and a quiet day in their rooms after the travails of both the road and the humiliation of the court. One could only hope such would clear their head. They couldn’t seem to shake the sight of the Emperor’s robe sliding so gently over his milky-pale shoulders in their thin silk wrappings. Wasn’t he cold? Where was his valet to ensure he was properly dressed for the court?

They shook their head. The Emperor was yet young--Gol ignored that they were even younger--and Khaylmer held him firmly with dreams of magic immortality. A soldier should have no truck with—their thoughts stalled as the Emperor’s voice rang out through the columns. “My general! Wait!”

Soliam himself came hurrying out to the great hall as the palace staff all around bowed to the floor, eyes properly on the ground. Breathless, he took Gol’s sleeve and fixed them with his gaze. Gol stared up at him, hypnotized, although they knew they shouldn’t meet the Emperor’s gaze, but Soliam didn’t seem to care. “You will not leave the court tonight?” Soliam asked, his tone urgent and his eyes warm. “I require… no, I… request your presence at dinner. I have already told Khaylmer to ensure your favorites are on the menu.”

Gol noted the lack of the formal ‘we’ and wondered what it could mean, that the Emperor should stop them thus. They also wondered, in passing, if the Emperor knew what their favorites even were. Unfortunately, however, if Khaylmer was planning their meal, they would need to be on guard for poison in every bite—a bath and quiet time in their rooms was now out of the question as they would need to find an alchemist not in the Rope-Caller’s payrolls and pay dearly for their services as apothecary for antidotes and poison-testing.

None of this was in their words, though, they trusted, as they bowed and said, “As my Liege wishes.”

“Oh…” Soliam dropped his sleeve and stepped back. “Forgive me…us for our anger in the throne room, Gol. Master Golathanian. But the Orb…”

“The Orb is neither here nor…” Gol stopped, and sighed. “There is no forgiveness required, my Emperor. I allowed myself to get far too heated.”

Soliam stepped a little closer, so close Gol could feel the warmth radiating from him. “I...thank you, truly, for what you have done today. Sahr shall not soon forget your service; your kind of immortality is assured for you. But acts of service to the Empire are not how I shall assure mine.”

His eyes opened a little wider, in his efforts to win Gol's approval. He sounded so honest, and yet he was such a pretty liar. Gol stepped back a little, keeping his gaze fixed on the Emperor's.

“They could be,” Gol said, but it was so, so soft they thought the Emperor might not hear them. "You could be the greatest ruler since Geminian's time if you would just—"

Soliam raised a hand to Gol’s face, tracing a new scar on their forehead, and the Master-General stood stone-still under his touch, all words fleeing their suddenly traitorous tongue. “You’ve been injured.”

Gol cleared their throat, heat of a different kind coiling in their belly and rising to their face. “Nay, my Liege, ‘twas a mere accident. During the search.”

Soliam bent, looking at it more closely. His robe fell open just a little more, all the intricate knotwork of the silken folds drooping and coming apart in his abstraction. “Ah, I see. Will you tell me…us. The story, at dinner?”

Gol stepped back, their voice a little rough. “As you will, my Liege, although it is a foolish tale and soon enough told. My Liege?”

Soliam straightened, smiling at them. “Yes, my General?”

“You may wish to…go dress. Properly. For court today.” Gol said, a little weakly. “Your robe…”

Soliam blinked, looking down at himself, his bare feet, his loose draping of silk, his unbound hair. There was a long beat of silence, and his eyes, when he raised them to Gol's, were smoky and dark. “Indeed, I should, Master-General...although I would certainly be... open to negotiation on that point.” He turned, and looked back over his shoulder as the robe slipped just a little more. “Until this evening, unless you'd...?”

“I…yes. This evening.” Soliam nodded, his mouth turning up in a knowing smile. Gol could only flee, routed as no general, especially a master of his craft, should ever be.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy CB, hecleretical! Hope you enjoyed the read!


End file.
